Paul
Doxology
Everlasting God
Your Love Is Everything (Your love is everything to me)
I Am Set Free
Rescuer chorus / interlude

Jon
Growing up in Michigan, you didn’t go outside in winter
But you could play outside in the summer humidity
Sometimes my mom would splurge and get me a gallon of grape drink
First choice was always water, but I was only interested in something sweet
So I would decline and go back out playing
Pleasure center of my brain was looking for that dopamine hit from sugar
When I finally got desperate, I would pick up the hose, no matter where it was lying, no matter what it smelled like, put my mouth on it and quench my thirst
Liquid is discussed a lot in the Bible

4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[a] 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:4-15 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Jesus is continually drawn to the outcast
He cannot resist a thirsty heart
When He sees brokenness, sees someone in need of repair
Jesus pursues her first
The woman is intrigued and investigates because this is something she has never seen before
You are in a good place when you are in a place of thirst
In Matthew 5, if you hunger and thirst after Me, you will be blessed
When someone comes to me and they’re asking question, I encourage them to keep asking questions, to keep investigating
When you keep digging, you’re going to hit bedrock eventually
And God is that bedrock
If you are hungry, thirsty, searching: it means that God searched for you first
Look in the text at what Jesus does next
Jesus gets to the sin behind the sin

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”
John 4:16-18 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Is adultery a sin?
Yes, it leaves a trail of destruction in its wake
Sin makes promises it can never keep
But we keep cycling back to it, seeking that pleasure
She thinks it will heal the aching void in your hearts
What is the thing that will satisfy this need?
She’s trying to hydrate herself with something that is dehydrating her
Here’s the problem for the woman
Every time that desire rises up in her, she stops short and goes back to the cycle of sin
Those are counterfeits
Maybe a change of scenery will be the thing for me
Those things may be good and necessary, but don’t expect it to give you what you need
Don’t expect to put anything else in that spot that God put inside of you
It’s like if you have a sweater that fits you perfectly and loan it to somewhere bigger than you
They put it on and stretch it out
Then they give it back to you and you put it on and it’s dopey
And you’re all Norm Co (????)
What’s my point?
God has stretched the void in you out so that only He can fill it
Wine is delicious, it tastes good, it enhances food
If you drink it when you are thirsty though, it will dehydrate you and you need to drink more of it and you get drunk
Jesus says we’ve got to get to your heart before we can give you the living water
What are the counterfeits, what are we linking our hearts to for the need, for the crave?
Are you self-aware enough to know what you’re turning to?
Stop trying to put on the sweater that God has stretched out
Look at how the woman reacts

29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,[a] can he?”
John 4:29 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

She acknowledges that she is a sinner
She owns it

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word.
John 4:39-41 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

They came out to believe Him because of this woman’s testimony

Ed. Note – what does that do to my testimony since I’m not an outcast among outcasts?

The story never mentions the woman feeling guilty or shameful
Because she’s been captured by grace
I don’t want sin anymore, I don’t crave it anymore
I know when a heart has been touched by grace
There’s this desire for more
John Piper
Fake desires for God are a terrible place to be
Later on in the Gospel of John (Chapter 19), Jesus says he is thirsty
He begins to feel this ache and this void that we must all truly experience if we want eternal life
We see Jesus taking on our pride and our arrogance and our judge mental spirits
He experienced all that on the cross
She identified her counterfeit and placed her trust in Jesus
Identify Jesus as Lord
Not just as an aid or a friend or a confidant
Tonight is Maria and Mike’s last night
We thought it would be fitting to have them serve us communion on their last night here

Maria
When I look at the bread and the cup, it’s beautiful
Sometimes saying we’re hungry and thirsty is enough
I love the symbol of the table, the unity it suggests and creates in us as a community

Paul
Nothing But The Blood (Your blood speaks a better word, than all the empty claims, I've heard upon this earth)
O The Deep, Deep Love Of Jesus